Woolrich is America’s oldest outdoor clothing brand, founded in 1830 by English immigrant John Rich and his partner Daniel McCormick in Plum Run, Clinton County, Pennsylvania — where Rich built a woolen mill beside a small brook and loaded a mule cart with fabric, socks, and yarn to sell to the lumberjacks and trappers of central Pennsylvania’s forest economy. In 1845, Rich bought out McCormick and moved the operation to a larger mill at Chatham’s Run, around which an entire company town grew — eventually named Woolrich, Pennsylvania, which remains the brand’s nominal headquarters today. For 195 years, Woolrich has outfitted American working and outdoor life: Union Army soldiers, Antarctic explorers, Alaskan pipeline workers, and generations of hunters, hikers, and anyone who needs to be warm in difficult weather.
Key Facts
- Founded: 1830
- Founders: John Rich (emigrated from Liverpool, England) and Daniel McCormick
- Headquarters: Woolrich, Clinton County, Pennsylvania, USA (nominal HQ); brand now owned by L-GAM (Luxembourg private equity)
- US Production: Last US plant closed September 2018; all production now overseas
- Industry: American Heritage Outdoor Clothing, Wool Apparel
History and Milestones
John Rich was born into a wool-weaving family in England and emigrated to the United States in the early 1800s, settling first in Philadelphia before moving to rural Pennsylvania to establish his mill. He sold from a mule cart, travelling to logging camps — a detail that captures the founding character of the brand entirely. Buffalo Check — the iconic red-and-black plaid pattern — was introduced in 1850 (the name reportedly coined in honour of a herd of buffalo owned by the designer who created the pattern). During the Civil War (1861–65), Woolrich supplied wool blankets to the Union Army. The Railroad Vest followed in 1890. The Pennsylvania Tuxedo — a red-and-black hunting suit with matching hat — launched in 1925.
The brand’s most modern icon, the Arctic Parka, was designed in the early 1970s specifically for workers constructing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, where temperatures averaged -40°F. The unmistakable silhouette — fur-lined hood, deep front pockets — remains central to Woolrich collections today. Woolrich outfitted Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s 1939–40 Antarctic Service Expedition. Seventh and eighth generation Rich family members remained involved in brand management until the 2016 sale of a majority stake to Italian company W.P. Lavori. The last US production plant in Woolrich, Pennsylvania closed permanently in September 2018. As of 2023, Todd Snyder was appointed Creative Director of the brand’s Black Label premium line.
Aesthetic and Products
Woolrich’s permanent codes are the Buffalo Check (red-and-black or black-and-white plaid), the Arctic Parka, the Mackinaw jacket (heavyweight boiled wool, four pockets), the Chamois shirt (introduced 1969), and the Pennsylvania Tuxedo hunting suit. The brand occupies heritage outdoor territory alongside Filson and Pendleton, and its Buffalo Check flannel has been referenced and imitated so widely that the pattern itself has become a shorthand for American outdoor identity.
Sources: